‘Egypt Under Pressure’: toward a personalist dictatorship
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi plans to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on April 9, the Egyptian strongman’s second Oval Office visit in two years, the… Read more »
Category: Middle East/North Africa
Arab Spring: the sequel?
The mantra of the Arab Spring is back. Protesters in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and the Palestinian territories [and Sudan] have demanded better governance of late, prompting talk of… Read more »
The New Normal? From non-state actors to ‘terrorist governors’
The Venezuelan regime’s mobilization of violent colectivo gangs against opposition protesters is only the latest instance of authoritarian regimes orchestrating illiberal non-state actors to counter democratic forces. Some non-state actors… Read more »
Middle East’s ‘distasteful theocracies’ under fire for rights abuses
The prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh’s draconian sentence for her peaceful activism shows the threat posed by Iran’s revolutionary courts to human rights work, the Center for Human… Read more »
Emerging Algerian opposition, civil society seek democratic reform
An emerging Algerian opposition group representing a mass protest movement has demanded the embattled president leave office in fewer than six weeks, Borzou Daragahi reports for the Independent: But… Read more »
International Women’s Day: defending women’s rights against authoritarianism
Women’s Learning Partnership Promo 2019 (English) from Women’s Learning Partnership on Vimeo. A recent public hearing of the US House Intelligence Committee dealt with the threat of rising authoritarianism and… Read more »
Iran’s power struggle ‘an opportunity for civil society & democratic forces’?
In historical examples of successful transitions to democracy, there has always been an alliance of democracy and civil society activists with centrists. The two must band together to prevent the… Read more »
Is Tunisia really democratizing? Progress + resistance = uncertain outlook
While Tunisia’s eighth anniversary celebrations of the end of the Ben Ali dictatorship were marred by social protests, opinions differ about the country’s state of political development as it gears… Read more »
‘No to the Fifth Term’: Algeria’s New Protest Movement
In recent weeks, Algeria has witnessed mass protests demanding that the ailing president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, not run for a fifth five-year term in the election scheduled for April 18. The… Read more »
Algeria’s protests: the ‘whole political system needs to be changed’
Algerians took to the streets on Tuesday with renewed calls for 82-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down and not seek any more time in office when the country votes… Read more »